Page 254 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Kfar Saba. These were Pinchas Kozlowski, later Sapir, who would become one of Israel's most famous Finance Ministers; Reuven Shraibman, later Shari, secretary of the workers councils of Jerusalem and later civil service commissioner; and Joseph Bankover, a member of Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh and one of the central activists of the Labor Movement.
In prison, the three received preferential treatment, probably due to the special appeal by the Chairman of the Jewish National Council Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who arranged for them daily outings for "outdoors work" in the recently erected High Commissioner's Palace, where they watered the trees; and more because of a conversation David Ben-Gurion had with the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, when he came to visit him. Ben-Gurion explained to the commissioner who the three men watering his garden were and what their sins were, and that he supports them and it is possible that he himself would end up demonstrating and getting arrested like them.
The three were released after a hundred (rather than 180) days. They immediately drove to the National Institutions Building and met with Ben-Gurion, Moshe Shertok, Eliezer Kaplan and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. Only afterwards did they travel to Tel Aviv and gone home from there.
An Aliya with a Catch
The work at the National Institutions Building often entailed professional risks. In 1937, the Mandate Government granted a reduced quota of certificates for Aliya, and the fight for every certificate led to attacks on the Aliya Department of the Jewish Agency and its heads, Eliyahu Dobkin and Moshe Shapira, and to demonstrations – some of which were violent.
Already in January of that year, the attacks intensified. Most of them came from the right side of the political map, from Beitar and the Revisionist Movement. This movement, which withdrew from the World Zionist Organization, regularly complained of its discrimination in the area of Aliya. Its newspaper "HaYarden" attacked the Agency Executive nearly every day for its discrimination, in its opinion, of the Revisionists and pointed an accusatory finger to anyone connected with the Aliya Department of the Agency. Eliyahu Dobkin obviously received a large portion of the accusations, as he was among Mapai's most senior representatives.
The climax seemingly came on 3 Shvat 5697 (January 15, 1937), when "HaYarden" published a full- page indictment written by the non-Zionist member of the Agency Executive, Dr. Werner Senator, which bore the headline: "The Agency – A Trading House for Certificates." This was an old letter that Senator wrote in May 1936 to the Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion, which raised a series of claims, all under loud bylines: "There is no way for a common Jew to make Aliya;" "Everything is being stolen by the parties;" "An unfair distribution and poisoning of the relations;" "Crimes and embezzlements around the distribution of certificates;" "The Agency Courts are covering up the scandal;" "The Mapai Congress encourages crafty plans in distribution of certificates;" and more.
252